The spending struggle rages between the unity governments, parliament, and the central bank

Nisreen Suleiman
Tripoli – “Al-Quds Al-Arabi”: The conflict is escalating day after day between the national unity government headed by Abdul Hamid Al-Dabaiba, which enjoys broad international support, and the House of Representatives government headed by Osama Hammad, who was unable to effectively extend his control over the sovereign institutions in Libya despite his appointment by the House of Representatives. .
Al-Dabaiba and Hammad exchange accusations related to spending, as each government spends individually, which has doubled the spending values ​​and made it difficult to monitor them in order to reduce the corruption that has spread in the country.

In a new context of this conflict, the head of the government appointed by the House of Representatives, Osama Hammad, called on all judicial, accounting and supervisory authorities to expedite the contents of the letter of the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya addressed to the head of the National Unity Government – in which he spoke about the reasons for the rise in foreign exchange – under the umbrella of accountability and investigation of all those who committed crimes. For the rights of the Libyan people and their future generations.
He stressed, during a statement on behalf of his government, the need to reveal the entity responsible for the spending from unknown sources, which Al-Siddiq Al-Kabir spoke about in his speech to Al-Dabaiba.
Hammad’s statement indicated that the practices of the National Unity Government, which he described as “expired,” are wrong and have caused the deterioration of citizens’ living conditions and severe damage to the national economy, in addition to causing a rise in foreign exchange prices against the local currency, according to his description.

On the other hand, he said that his government was and is still working in accordance with the legislation in force, and is committed to the law approving the state’s general budget issued by the House of Representatives. The Hammad government statement pointed out that the responses launched today by the Prime Minister of the Unity Government, Abdul Hamid Dabaiba, to the effect that the imbalance that struck the Libyan economy was due to bank credits, “are nothing but weak arguments to evade responsibility.”
He called on the Central Bank not to shirk responsibility for the deterioration of economic conditions in all areas, as it is the body responsible for implementing exchange orders issued by the Ministry of Finance of the Government of National Unity.
This comes in the midst of an escalating dispute between the Governor of the Bank of Libya and the Prime Minister of the National Unity Government, Abdul Hamid Al-Dabaiba.

Disagreements over control of the government and financial resources of the Libyan state have often been the focus of the armed conflict that has torn the Libyan state apart since the February 17 revolution.
In an open letter to Parliament Speaker Aguila Saleh on Tuesday, Central Bank Governor Siddiq Al-Kabir requested the imposition of a 27% fee on the official exchange rate for all purposes except sectors financed by the public treasury, which practically means devaluing the dinar.
In December 2020, the Central Bank set the exchange rate at 4.8 dinars to the dollar after years of varying exchange rates in different regions of the country controlled by competing factions.

He said that the new exchange rate will range from 5.95 to 6.15 dinars to the dollar, and the fees will generate revenues estimated at about 12 billion dollars that will help pay off the public debt and finance development projects.
Before that, the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya, Al-Siddiq Al-Kabir, expressed his annoyance at the increase in government spending, which during the last three years reached 420 billion dinars.
He said in letters addressed to the head of the National Unity Government in Tripoli, Abdel Hamid Al-Dabaiba, that most of it was directed to consumer expenditures at the expense of development spending in a way that created pressure on the exchange rate of the Libyan dinar. He was surprised by the latter’s desire for the exchange rate of the Libyan dinar to be 1.3 per dollar. At a time when the government increases consumer expenditures.
In response, the Prime Minister of the Unity Government said that the government’s expenditures from the allocated revenues during three years amounted to 15 billion dollars, which included the construction and maintenance of roads and schools, the maintenance and preparation of hospitals, and well projects to provide and deliver water to some areas that suffered for years without it, as the amount of pumping reached 97 thousand. cubic liters per day, as well as establishing and maintaining administrative centers and resuming work for suspended projects.
Al-Dabaiba accused the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya of lying, and said: “They are lying to you and saying that we spent 400 billion, and the Ministry of Finance will organize a symposium to clarify the truth,” noting that his government allocated 7.8 billion to the Ministry of Oil, to cover the debts during previous years, in addition to allocating 1.8 billion to the electricity sector. One billion dinars and 977 million to supply medicines to all hospitals.
Al-Dabaiba expressed his government’s readiness to cooperate with the Central Bank of Libya to stop the money smuggling, and considered that the rumors that talk about the country’s bankruptcy are just false fabrications, aimed at maintaining the status quo and fighting development and reconstruction projects, adding that the Central Bank liquidated more than 55 billion dollars to commercial banks during In the past three years, 74 percent of the hard currency that entered the bank.